Monday, November 06, 2006

Diamond dust from Himos snow guns

Mika Aho was also on the halo move on saturday 4. November. He headed for the Himos ski center, where some 30 snow guns were operational. The trip was worthwhile. From skiing flanks spread an ice crystal cloud that, even though a bit unclean in appearance, presented some of the rarest halos.

These rare halos are best shown in the photo on the left where several white arcs are seen crossing the sky. Wegener, helic, subhelic, subanthelic and Tricker arcs are all present. Outside Antarctica subanthelic arc has been observed reliably only twice before, both times in Finland. Now Aho's photos add the third observation.

More of the display is to be found here. Like Oksanen, also Aho got halos in moonlight the following night. These photos are under the same link.

6 Comments:

Could be but could be also cloud. Look at the right side photo, where there is similar looking cloud streak at different position. Anyway, should simulate the display to see how Hastings is predicted to behave at this sun elevation. Mika, what is the sun elevation?